Festival Internacional de Benicàssim - Friday

Onward then with the lads' PR and Danny's indiegirl former PowDer singer wife Pearl to go catch a bit of hideously underrated Manchester collective I AM KLOOT, who deliver the most beautiful of northern twanged melodious delight to a surprisingly large crowd in the Fiberfib.com tent. It's four in the afternoon and stuff has only just started.

Matt Bellamy is in high spirits. The lucky little bastard has blagged himself a copy of the new Rage Against The Machine album. Speaking about future Muse music Matt tells us 'You can expect a new album late next year. We're going into the studio to start recording soon, and we'll probably have a new EP out by the end of the year, with another one next year before the album'. BANG!

Skip forward a few cervezas and as daylight folds away, THE ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE lads pole up some true Brit grit spirit for the now swelled crowd adjourning the main stage. They think by dedicating 'Empty At The End' to Virtual Festivals it'll stop us telling you what a heaving pile of toss they are. Only joking. Alex and Tom are on top form tonight, and with new single 'Same Way Everyday' the latest gem from their Mercury Music Prize nominated debut LP 'Holes In The Wall' sounding sparklingly pristine, the future looks incendarialy bright for da ESP!

Two rather drunken VF crew members were mistakenly identified as being THE MONTGOLFIER BROTHERS whilst harassing THE ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE during their press conference, not surprising given the lardy pale nature of both their respective carcusses. Continuing the white Brit boy invasion, SUPERGRASS, the ultimate festival monkey bunnies, hit and hit through over seven years of classics. You'll like new single 'Grace'. It's class. Supergrass go down a right treat. Like fresh strawberry pies on a hot Sunday afternoon. Yum, yum.

Muse as ever, stepped everything up five gears, invented a new playing field and then blew the fucker to sky with one outrageously supreme set cut short due the incompetence of the Spanish sound crew. Unveiling two new songs entitled 'TSP' and another simple 'New Piano'. The first is a true-bled Muse-pop number akin to 'Plug In Baby' or 'In Your World', the second a, erm, piano number (?), there is still nothing to touch Matt Bellamy's fucked up little mind.

Except maybe The Cure. The only band here that Virtual Festivals had never enjoyed live, they proved a remarkably deep and impeccably dark ninety minutes of rock n roll perfection. 'Killing An Arab', 'Friday I'm In Love', 'Boys Don't Cry' - you know the songs. Never has band unconditionally surprised in such a way. The Cure left twenty-five thousand people open mouthed and open hearted. Mindblowing.